Comments

1

I try to appreciate the craft (and daring) of graffiti writers, but there's no way around it: the city, and I-5 in particular, look like absolute shit.

spray paint ought to be a controlled substance, like Sudafed.

2

As I like to tell out of town friends; ‘Any color you like in Seattle -as long as it’s gray’!

3

100% behind this initiative. We can pass laws, make consequences for violations and debate the merits of an anti-graffiti initiative over something else. But at the end of the day we all need to roll our sleeves up, pitch in, and have some basic respect for our city and stop letting minor infractions slide in the name of individual expression or need. What do we love more, our city or the idea we’re somehow “sticking it to the man,” which is just ourselves who ultimately foots the tax bill and suffers the consequences of destabilizing neighborhoods.

4

call me crazy, but if it's not yours you shouldn't be painting it.

5

Where is Lisa Herbold to write a column about legalizing this along with every other thing considered illegal? It doesn’t affect her…. She lives in North Bend.

6

And “graffiti culture war” may be a reach.

7

All the major taggers in Seattle are middle aged white dudes that live with their parents in Burien. Enough with these butt clowns and their fake art. Go paint a mural of MLK or something if ya really got to, and please stop tagging the union hall I used to live in because that’s so not sticking it to the man when you mess up a temple to labor.

8

The city looks like shit. Arrest the losers that are doing it. Fine them for every tag. If they can’t afford to pay, they should have to do community service to clean up the graffiti, needles and drug vagrant crap piles.

9
  1. I agree Lisa Herbold ( along with Morales, Sawant, Mosqueda, Lewis and straus, Holmes) that turned Seattle into an embarrassment and cautionary tale. It pisses me off the Herbold lives in Northbend and the other clowns live in parts of the city that seem to operate by a different set of rules. I can’t wait to vote them out. Harrell, Nelson, and Davison are turning the ship away from the iceberg, but there are still way too many leftist crazies on the council that have there heads in their asses.
11

@9: you can't "vote out" 7 council members, some of who have to represent a district you don't live in. if you even live in the city. because if you did you would know that.

12

I'm pretty sympathetic about a whole bunch of things. But I hate 90% of graffiti. It's terrible, it's rarely interesting, and most of these dipshtis do not respect other artists and do not even pretend to.

The defense of it is, like here, always weak and fallacious. They best you can say is going after vandals is expensive and maybe give the better "artists" places to work (Which immediately get destroyed by other "artists"). Other than that it just makes other people lives harder and you really have to strain to justify it.

And Tagging rarely ascends to the level of anything like art. I have yet to encounter one of these "artists" that wasn't a complete dirtbag and entitled asshole.

13

Dumb-ass here: does Herbold really live in Northbend? WTF????

14

Takes about 3-1/2 fucking hours to get from Alaska Junction to Northbend with the dead bridge.

15

@13 She owns a home out there but she also owns her home in West Seattle (thus she qualifies to run for office). There has long been a rumor that she spends most of her time in North Bend rather than West Seattle so make of that what you will but as long as she owns property in West Seattle she can continue to run. It's up the people of West Seattle to decide whether she can represent them while hanging out in North Bend.

17

The tagging is messy. I agree on that. But I have seen some outstanding graffiti that blows me away. The sheer talent captivates me, and I wish there was a way to use that for greater appreciation and "lawful", so these artists can be showcased.

18

It boggles the mind why anyone would complain about graffiti on the concrete walls of a freeway. The road was never pretty; if anything the graffiti -- even when it isn't "artistic" -- is an improvement. Scratch the surface (or get the complainer drunk) and you will soon find the source of the angst. Eventually someone will let slip that it "looks like the ghetto". And there you have it. It reminds them of predominately black neighborhoods. Wait, they say -- it is white kids doing it now. No matter. The point is, it reminds them of neighborhoods full of low income black people. You know, low class people (in every sense of the word).

Never mind the fact that the freeway itself cut through low income communities -- often destroying them in the process -- in its rush to serve the suburban white residents. What is important is that we not be reminded of such things. Folks would rather live in a fairy tale land where such problems just don't exist.

Thus the culture war. Not over all graffiti, of course, but graffiti on the freeway? Come on. Same goes for where most of the graffiti is. I would complain if someone tagged the fuck out of the Space Needle. But graffiti on a garbage can has people with their panties in a bunch? Holy shit, it is a fucking trash can!

I think it is funny that the law basically says graffiti is what we say it is. Consider the law that requires *private" property owners to cover it up. First of all, this is bullshit. They are the victims, and are being required to fix it. Second, what if they aren't the victims? I think it is funny that one of the companies put up a mural, and that solved the problem. But wait -- isn't the mural graffiti? Couldn't someone, as soon as they have graffiti simply say that it is a mural?

There are a lot of things to complain about, but graffiti is the least of them. Invasive species are much worse. They cost the country billions of dollars every year. You can see them at times along the freeway, but people don't frequent out about them, because they are fucking idiots.

20

I forgot to mention: nice article. I think one thing it left out was the political aspect of graffiti. Graffiti is very common, and widely accepted in Argentina. This is because they lived under an oppressive government for many years (and people would write graffiti to protest it). That could never happen here, right? Ha, I'm joking, of course.

But beyond national fascism, you also have local fascism. If I lived in L. A. a few years ago, and saw some graffiti with the words "Google LASD Gangs", I would wonder what the fuck they are talking about. I would probably Google those words, only to be shocked (and I don't use that word lightly) about the situation there. Of course I would expect loosely affiliated asshole cops, but not real, honest to goodness, fucking gangs. Like Crips and Bloods type gangs. But sure enough, they exist, and have been a problem for years.

Graffiti can be used to enlighten the sympathetic but ignorant majority. It can spark a movement. This is important to keep in mind.

22

how bout
Severing
the undeserving

does that pass the
nothing to see here
Sniff Test?

Great Comment(s)
on a GREAT article
Ross and Jas

25

"What is important is that we
not be reminded of such things.
Folks would rather live in a fairy tale
land where such problems just don't exist."
--@Ross brilliantly above

from Gosford Park
'the land that might have bean'
when it was against the Law to be Gay*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suTHhKXdVdE

*trumpfy and his hundred
million minions somehow
make it back they're gonna
re-Visit That one. head's up

26

I have never seen cool graffiti that isn't splattered over w/ crap tags in very short order. Interspersing periods of gray among the layers doesn't really seem to detract from the overall artistic contribution of the whole thing.

30

@23 - at the wholesale level, the paint is paid for by the retail stores. At the retail level, I somehow suspect that much of it leaves the store in someone's pocket and is not really paid for at all.

31

@30 If pharmacies have to lock sudafed behind a counter, why can't hardware stores lock spray paint behind counters?

I wonder about "auctioning" the right to decorate sections of walls? The artist would have a vested interest in protecting their section. I agree that some tags and graffiti is better than miles and miles of grey walls.

32

Q: What is the primary difference between graffiti/tagging and art?

A: Permission.

34

That blue throwie in the top pic is very well done. They should have left that one up.

35

The question becomes whether or not the 50% or so of the city's residents who do not own any of the land in said city get any say in how the place they live looks. Lets be honest, the bigger the property owner, the less interesting any art they'll allow on said property will likely be (see: most art installations around skyscrapers or large apartment developments), and I think the street artists would probably make higher quality work if they didn't have do it quickly without being seen with the knowledge it would soon be painted over. All criminalization does is create rushed art and lost potential, which I guess feeds the self-fulfilling prophecy of "graffiti should be illegal because it's ugly (because it's illegal)".

Lastly, shout-out to GOOEY, my current favorite to see around town. Excited to see their next work on some of that fresh, city-funded canvas.

36

It’s hilarious that you could have copy/pasted these comments from when they hired that graffiti cop nerd 10 years ago and you can copy/paste the comments in 10 years when this gets rehashed again. “Graffiti is killing the cityyyyyy!!! It’s never been like this / will never ever be thiiissss baaadddd”
Meanwhile everybody ignores you and keeps painting

39

With so many horrible things currently happening in the world, it is absolutely mind boggling to me that anyone could possibly give a shit about graffiti (!) of all things right now. Talk about some fucking privilege.

40

I'd Much rather see a video
of these guys run backwards
so with each pass a little more
of that wonderful Graffiti re-emerges

just keep the high
fives at the end

42

yeah @39
this is a Strict
Rules Enforced
schlog and ANY
attempts at derail-
ment'll be done by
the Conservatrolls!
or Not at all. Got it?

talk about idiocy!

43

None of this rises to the level of the red wall:

https://youtu.be/RwK4NmQZe64

45

are they Artists or vandals?

give them some acres of blank brutalism
to cover as they see fit but there
Is an Admission Fee as in
Pay-to-Play:

you gotta have Re-
Ceipts* for your paint.

*got a Sponsor yet?
I hear Sherwin
Williams is
looking


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